MY NY...

When most women think of NY they want to go into the City and get in the traffic, trains, buildings, Subways, Broadways, and Parkways on the Expressway and throughways. In fact there are many "ways" to get to NYC, but maybe the best way is not to go west at all, but east. I am not a woman (last time I checked) and hence have the tendency to flee from any situation where I'm obligated (I signed the contract I know) to carry the purse or a half eaten gummed hot dog and stuck carrying that huge stroller up those two flights of subway stairs. That's not me. The city is OK maybe once a month (at best), but it can be like herding hamsters when you have little kids. I prefer to go East--further on Long Island (FYI--nuclear fallout falls 10% per mile--hey I think about that stuff), and carry my 3.5 inch Mossberg Semi Auto instead of a purse and a stroller. They actually have country stations and 60 miles of Sod farms and beautiful Oak forests. Long Island remains somewhat warmer than the other parts of NY, thus enticing tens of thousands of Canadian Geese to winter here all year. Canadians can reach 12-15 lbs and people here hate 'em because they leave their huge droppings everywhere in the parks. There are actually companies that are hired(they drive Prius's and have this crazy EPA logo) to scare the geese out of your park, yard, or Golf Course or put this nasty stuff on your grass as goose repellant (pictured above left). There are better (and funner) ways New Yorkers...Guys like me who have goose hunted the dream hunt areas of Eagle Lake in TX for years with Dad, can continue the tradition of really scaring them and grow even fonder of NY. For most of y'all who don't know how goose hunting is done, I'll give you a quick talkin' to. In TX you usually haul 700-1000 wind sock decoys through the mud after driving a few hours to then sit in the mud and wait for the skies to come alive. It is a blast, we've done it for as long as I can remember. In Tx you shoot mostly smaller snow geese which can sometimes number 40-50,000 in a field, but with lots of hunting pressure, it can get quite tough to have them committ to landing within 40 yards, or with my gun--within 60 yards. On Long Island, it's not a well known thing and it's only about a 45 minute drive to reach miles of beautiful Sod fields, in this case right behind the big Splish and Splash Waterpark (you can see it in the background in the very first pic). And with no hunting pressure, the birds are let's say, very naive. It definitely makes for a more comfortable hunt. In fact I wore my Crocs (open heeled shoes)on this hunt. The temp dipped to about 28 degrees with a slight NW wind, perfect to get the geese moving. With just about 35 full body decoys put out in two groups next to(within 40 yards) a dug out box blind to conceal Me, Toby and my good friend Tom Casey from Long Island Waterfowling, we were all set up in about 15 minutes compared to the 2 hours it takes when hunting Snow geese in TX. The Geese leave their roost (home) at about 8am, fly down the riverbank to work (us) and hit this field by the hundreds. They see our full body Goose set up and hear the calling, and land---in my freezer...Long Island has a 3 bird per hunter limit. We don't use the dogs here, that would be just plain laziness. The season usually runs from Thanksgiving till Feb 7. We limited with 9 birds by 9:30am. The interesting part is always bringing home that many birds home to debreast without a shed or a yard, you can get some crazy looks from your tree huggin environmentalist neighbors...that garbage man sure was surprised I bet. While I was cleaning 'em the conversation went like this... "Dad, you killed it? Yes son. Did it hurt? No, son. That one's bleeding dad...I know son. So there are no more to feed at the park? Fortunately for us...yes, son." Anyway, so if you're only seeing 1 turtle dove or haven't seen any at all this year, chances are--they could be in season. Merry Christmas y'all.